If you're new to selling on Amazon, one of the first decisions you'll run into is how your orders actually get packed and shipped. Amazon gives sellers two main paths: Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) and Fulfilment by Merchant (FBM). Understanding the difference matters more than it might seem, because it affects your pricing, your day-to-day workload, and how your listings compete for the Buy Box.
With FBA, you send your inventory to an Amazon fulfilment centre in advance. From that point on, Amazon stores the stock, and when a customer orders, Amazon picks, packs and ships it on your behalf. Amazon also handles customer service and returns for FBA orders, and FBA listings are eligible for Prime shipping, which many buyers filter for specifically.
In exchange, Amazon charges fulfilment fees (based on the size and weight of your product) and storage fees (based on how much space your inventory takes up and how long it sits there). Those fees are a real cost that needs to be built into your pricing from day one, not treated as an afterthought.
With FBM, you keep the inventory yourself — at home, in a warehouse, or with a third-party logistics provider — and you pack and ship each order yourself when it comes in. You're also responsible for your own customer service and returns handling. FBM avoids Amazon's fulfilment and storage fees, but it puts the operational work back on you or your team.
There isn't a single right answer — it depends on your product, your margins, and how hands-on you want to be. Many sellers use FBA for fast-moving, standard-sized products where Prime eligibility drives sales, and FBM for slower-moving, oversized, or higher-margin items where the fulfilment fees don't make sense. Some sellers run a mix of both across their catalogue.
Whichever path you choose, the fee structure changes periodically, so it's worth checking Amazon's current Seller Central fee schedule before finalising your pricing, rather than relying on numbers you read somewhere else.